


Aboard

by tinx_r



Category: Riptide (TV)
Genre: 5senses, Drabble Series, Drabbles, Gen, Riptide drabble challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-27
Updated: 2019-03-27
Packaged: 2019-12-25 12:21:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18261197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinx_r/pseuds/tinx_r
Summary: Murray reflects on the experiences of his new life..





	Aboard

**Author's Note:**

> For the [Riptide Drabble Challenge](https://pier56.dreamwidth.org/302621.html)

The first thing I saw was the sun. It seems different out here. In the city, its significance is diminished. I realized that I'm more familiar with the flyspotted ceiling at DynaGame than I am with the star that gives us all life. A humbling and embarrassing thought.

Feels like with all my achievements, I've missed something important. Something I hope Nick and Cody are going to help me find. I want a life more like theirs.

I've been watching them, the way they laugh together. Working with them's going to be so boss - I've got so much to learn!

***

Every day when I come up on deck and taste the salt breeze, I feel more alive than I ever did before. It's better than the time I solved the issue in the satellite link and got the Pentagon... but that's one of the things I can't talk about.

I used to think success tasted sweetest. I thought the bitterness was from DynaGame ripping me off. Since I've been here, I think differently.

Watching Nick and Cody together, being with them, I'm learning about a new kind of success. It's measured in friendship, and it tastes sweeter than anything else.

***

The Riptide smells different to any place I lived before. I guess it stands to reason, being a boat. You can smell the sea of course, a salty, fresh tang; and there's a slight - but not unpleasant - fishiness from the market on the pier.

There's another scent too, rich and warm, one that belongs to the boat itself. If I could bottle it I'd wear it as cologne. It's brass polish and wood, and something deeper, something that makes me think of the guys, smiling at each other and at me.

To me, that's already become the scent of home.

***

The sounds of the boat at night - creaks, groans, the lapping of the water - kept me awake the first few nights. Now I've been here a little while, they've blended with the soft whirr of the computer fans to become a sound it's hard to sleep without.

If I've been working late on a project, I go on deck and listen to the night. You can still hear people - traffic, a clang of garbage cans, voices now and then - but the night gradually mutes them, until the only sound remaining is the insistent murmur of the waves against the pier.

***

Nick and Cody touch a lot. They sit close together, stand together, walk together. They're always patting each other - on the shoulder, on the arm, on the leg.

At first, I found it kind of strange. And to begin with, when they'd pat my shoulder or put an arm around me, I felt a little bit awkward.

Now that I've been here a little while, I've learned to love it. When things are bad, there's a friendly hand on your shoulder. When things are good, someone's patting you on the back. I'm one of the team, and it feels great.


End file.
